Thursday, 22 June 2017

We buried Maryam a month ago.
She was three.
Her father had to pull her dead body away from her mother.
(She wouldn't let go).

Yesterday I saw a child ( nearly Maryam's age) in the souk.
She'd put her bottle down her shirt.
it was so adorable. It suffocated me.
I was almost openly weeping in the market.

Does her mother ever leave the house? Does her mother hurt at every child that has been allowed to live?
Does she wake up in the night because she dreamt her child called out to her?

55,000 children have been killed in Syria.
55,000 sets of parents who wake up in the night thinking their child called out to them.
55,000 sets of families who've buried someone who should've outlived them.
55,000 mothers who'd already dreamt of careers and graduation presents and wedding bells for their children before bullets and inhumanity wiped it off the slate.

2154 Palestinian children have been murdered since September 29,2000.
2154.

2154.

2154.

2154.

In my dreams all the children are crawling out of Maryam's grave and trying to strangle me.

In my dreams, the only thing I can smell is blood.

In my dreams, the all the children I couldn't save are soaked in their blood, and their blood rains all around me and eventually drowns me.

When I awaken, the rulers of the land are squabbling,
oh, the rulers of the land are quarrelling
oh, the rulers of the land starving their neighbours in the holy month,
oh, the rulers are playing chess in a burning house
and arguing over who cheated
while the flames devour them all.